This week on the podcast, we're prepping for the next Gmail outage, learning a new language in a matter of months, and wondering if an all-in-one home theater is a good idea. We'll also figure out the best time to upgrade to an iPhone, the best format for your music, and how to fix one of Flash's biggest annoyances.

Note: The podcast is still uploading to some destinations, so check back later for more download options.

How to Watch or Listen to This Week's Episode

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News and Discussion

Gmail rarely goes down, but it isn't perfect. This week we're talking about how to prepare for an outage, how you can learn to speak a new language in record time, and whether or not IKEA's new UPPLEVA home theater-in-a-box is a good idea.

Gmail Goes Down!
What do you do when Gmail goes down? This stuff. Just because the primary web interface is down doesn't mean you can't access it in other ways. Often times you'll be able to access Gmail in plain HTML, through the mobile interface, or by connecting via IMAP through a third-party client. A third-party client is actually a great way to prepare for an outage so you have offline access to your messages.

Lots of folks are having trouble accessing Gmail today, and today's outage is just one in a…
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Learn a New Language in Record Time
Melanie joined us this week to talk about a guest post she arranged, by Gabriel Wyner, who learned to fluently speak four languages in just a few years. His system still involves the hard work and commitment involved with learning a new language, but without an enormous time commitment. He made it happen really easily, and it's a pretty remarkable system. Learn more about it here.

Lifehacker reader Gabriel Wyner was tasked with learning four languages in the past few years for…
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IKEA UPPLEVA
What is an UPPLEVA? It's IKEA's new customizable home theater-in-a-box coming sometime next year. You pay one price for the furniture, smart television, Blu-ray player, and audio system. Cable management is built-in and you only need one remote. But what happens if you want to upgrade or already own pieces of your home theater system? It sounds like a remarkably product, but we wonder how applicable it will be to the average person. If you're looking for an easy way to get everything you need for a home theater when you have nothing already, it's a great fit. If you're us, have one or many components, and enjoy a good DIY project, here's how you can make the UPPLEVA yourself right now.

IKEA's new UPPLEVA entertainment center promises the holy grail of home theaters: a fully…
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Questions and Answers

Each week we answer five questions from readers and listeners. Here's what we tackled this week.

Should I upgrade my dumbphone to an iPhone right now or wait until the iPhone 5?
Whitson recently had this exact same dilemma and upgraded from his Android smartphone to an iPhone. He's excited, and decided to buy an iPhone 4 since he could get one off-contract at a reasonable price. If he wants to upgrade to the 5 later, he'll be able to sell it for a good chunk of change and make the upgrade pretty decent. He, Pash, and I agreed that upgrading now made the most sense if we were satisfied with the current offering. If there is something the upcoming iPhone 5 might offer that you really want, then you might as well wait. Mel prefers to wait for the next version of everything because she's more patient than us and she doesn't like to buy a product in the middle of its cycle. Ultimately you're going to have to judge what's best for yourself, but if you're happy with what's available now and won't mind a reduced resale value in the future, most of us suggest buying now.

How can I stop Flash from automatically playing audio whenever I open a video or web site with a Flash element?
Mel ran down plenty of solutions for the annoying problem of Flash blasting audio through your speakers without your expressed permission. Chrome users can employ Click to Play so you have to click on any Flash elements before they load. Flash Block for Chrome and Firefox, or ClickToFlash for Safari, can do the same thing. Windows users have an added bonus of using FlashMute which will let you automatically mute any Flash videos—perhaps a perfect solution to this problem.

How can I make my Gmail address more professional without changing it or making a new account?
The caller asking this question has a possibly embarrassing email address that he doesn't want to use when applying for a job. He doesn't want to change his email address because everyone already knows it, and he doesn't want to manage multiple email accounts. Because Gmail can't create true forwarding aliases—only this type of alias—you need to actually create a separate account. The upside, however, is you can combine the accounts together. Gmail offers a multiple inboxes feature. Just add one account to the other and it's like having two email addresses in one.

Stacking together a handful of separate features in Gmail gives you a unified inbox for managing…
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Which audio format provides the best balance between quality, file size, and openness?
There is no perfect answer to this question because no format really meets all the criteria. While Lucas—the person asking this question—was somewhat opposed to MP3, we're not. We think it's the optimal choice right now. While it will create slightly bigger files than something like AAC, unless you're in need of all the storage you can get it won't make that much of a difference. While AAC is a better format, it doesn't have the near-perfect device support of MP3. With MP3 you know that pretty much anything can play your music and this, in our opinion, is the most important thing. Although MP3 isn't open, it's so ubiquitous that there's virtually no practical difference. Our recommendation is to encode your music collection at MP3 at 256-320kbps (or wherever you're unable to hear the difference anymore), but keep a backup collection in a lossless format (like FLAC) or uncompressed format if you ever want to change formats without the risk of degradation.

Think you can tell the difference between CD quality music and compressed MP3s? This simple test…
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How can I recover data from a dead laptop with a still-functional hard drive?
Open up your laptop, pull out the drive, and hook it up to a new computer with either a external drive enclosure, drive dock, or SATA/IDE-to-USB cable, and copy the data over. It's very easy to do, and all of these options shouldn't cost you more than $15-20.

Who sponsors the Lifehacker podcast?
At the moment, nobody. We used to have sponsors, so some people may have concerns about current sponsorship (e.g. is anyone sponsoring behind the scenes). If we accept ads on the podcast at any point, they will be explicit. Right now that isn't happening, but you'll be aware of any paid advertising. When we talk about products and services, however, it's because we want to talk about them. Nobody is paying us or encouraging us to do so.

Show and Tell

This week Whitson brought in his new USB DAC and Amplifier, which makes your headphones or speakers sound a lot better when connected to your computer. Soundcards don't always provide the full sound you may think you're getting, so a digital-to-analog-converter (DAC) can help. Whitson runs down a bunch of options in this post, but be sure to check the comments for additional suggestions as well.

So you've picked out the perfect pair of headphones, but they sound a little flat and quiet…
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Downloads of the Week

Each week we talk about our favorite downloads. Here are our picks for this week.

Collusion (Firefox and Chrome)
Collusion is a Firefox and Chrome extension that will show you in real time which sites are tracking you, where you picked up their tracking cookies, and what they can see.

SquadMail (Web)
SquadMail sets up shared email folders that automatically delivers the emails, notes, and attachments in that folder to all the subscribers in a group-making it the "Dropbox of email." Besides group collaboration, you can use SquadMail for your anonymous email needs.

Wave Control (Android)
If you're on a flight with your phone propped up in front of you, or listening to music while you work on your phone with your hands on the keyboard, it can be a pain to stop, unlock your phone or tap it to bring up the playback controls, and hit forward, back, switch songs, or change videos. Wave Control is a new Android app that lets you customize hand gestures to control music and video playback that you perform over your phone's proximity sensor, Minority Report style.

Pocket (Formerly Read It Later, Multiple Platforms)
The popular bookmarking service Read It Later received a big update including a new name, interface, and a price drop. On top of a new look, the service—now called Pocket—makes it easier to view videos and images while retaining the simple reading interface you're familiar with.

Daily Personal Inventory and Gmail Statistics (Web)
This week we put together a digital personal inventory to track your behavior and find out, through statistics, what's causing problems in your life. We also looked at a new script called Gmail Meter that analyzes your Gmail usage data and provides you with interesting statistics. Both require a free Google account to work.

Please keep your questions as brief as possible. This means about 3-5 sentences for emails and 30-60 seconds for calls and videos. Your questions can be specific, but broader questions are generally better because they'll apply to more people. For example, "how can I breathe new life into my old PDA?" is much better than "what can I do with an old HP iPAQ 210?" Either way, we look forward to hearing from you!